#308: Bowery Poetry Club

The Bowery, NYC

I've posted this picture before, but its quirky hand-lettering always cheers me. This #308 also happens to mark the Bowery Poetry Club -- one of those venerable New York institutions I've for some reason never set foot in. (Now that I've admitted it, I'm that much more likely to remedy it.) That said, it's been a good week for readings and spoken word, and I can't decide what was more memorable: the man at the T.C. Boyle reading at BookCourt who, to kick off the Q&A, squeezed a stuffed animal frog before launching into a dramatic environmental jeremiad, or watching Brittany Barker, one of the fabulously talented girls from Girls Write Now, the organization I volunteer for, stand up before a huge crowd at the New Amsterdam Theatre in Times Square and deliver a phenomenal spoken word piece at the Urban Word poetry slam finals. Well, who says I can't pick both? New York is many things, but it's certainly never boring. And while I always love curling up with a good book and typing away in obscurity, it's nice to know that words can be wildly entertaining as well.

Also, if you happened to miss it (you might well have since I was too busy last week rambling on about obscure bits of Brooklyn to remember to mention it here), go check out my guest post at the Anti-Room on Stranger Danger, wanderlust, and the joys of traveling alone.